Mitt Romney

 Today's Washington Times has a story by Ralph Hallow about NY-23. One of the things Ralph discussed was Newt Gingrich's struggles with the race. He quotes Newt:

He said Mr. Hoffman's "rise is a result of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, the Club for Growth, Gov. [Sarah] Palin and [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Pawlenty and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and virtually the entire national conservative movement joining with Mike Long, whose Conservative Party, a very established organization, which won its first big race 39 years ago."

It is striking to me that Tim Pawlenty is the only presumptive 2012 candidate in that list, unless Sarah Palin really gets in, but there are no indications that she is. After a Presidential primary in which Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee fought out for the conservative mantle (to a stalemate, I might add), they both were absent from this battle.

You see, NY-23 is the first big fight of the 21st century for the conservative movement. It is important to remember that this movement is about moving the to the right by moving its governing coalition to the right. That means, by definition, the Republican Party because it is the vehicle of the center-right coalition in American politics. There can be no doubt that, whatever the result on Tuesday or afterwards, that the leadership of the GOP has been chastened. Marc Ambinder's analyzes the race and concludes that Scozzafava's social liberalism was necessary to create the conditions on the ground for the Conservative Party to reach out to national groups. However, ultimately, the Club for Growth, responding to her positions on card-check, the stimulus, etc., funded Hoffman and really made this happen. In other words, the two key components of the conservative movement came together in perfect complimentarity.

So we have the definitional fight for the conservative movement, post-Bush. And only Pawlenty shows up at the fight? But for the movement, the question is as much "are you with us on the fight" as it is "are you with us on issues". Let's consider how this impacts Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, both of whom declined being in the fight over the last several weeks.

Let's take Huckabee first. Mike Huckabee not only didn't endorse Doug Hoffman, Huckabee took $20,000 away from Hoffman's GOTV effort (which tells me that he isn't running, but ...):

Huckabee, who according to Upstate Committee sources is receiving a five-figure fee in excess of $20,000 for his appearance, has refused to personally endorse Hoffman, who is pro-life and signed the "no-tax" pledge in August before his announced candidacy, and has informed Hoffman that HuckPAC will not support him either. Some Conservative Party officials believe Huckabee's fee is intended for his PAC. Ironically, the dinner is held to honor conservatives who exemplify conservative principles.

This offers a(nother) critique of Huckabee from the movement perspective. Huckabee is particularly vulnerable here. In 2008, no electorally significant critique damaged Huckabee within his base of evangelical voters. Why? I think that Ramesh Ponnuru nailed it in a discussion of Romney's campaign:

Romney’s problem was not that he is a Mormon. It was that he is not an evangelical. A strong plurality of evangelicals “would have backed Huckabee against anybody — Mormon, Buddhist, or Catholic,” says another former Romney adviser. “They were voting for one of their own.” To attribute Romney’s loss in Iowa to anti-Mormon prejudice from evangelicals, he says, is like attributing Romney’s victories in Utah and Nevada to Mormons’ hostility to people from all other faiths. But this adviser reaches the same conclusion as his colleagues who blamed anti-Mormonism: Romney should not spend as much time and resources on Iowa next time. 

In other words, the options for Huckabee voters were to go to Romney. Not going to happen. But guess what? Tim Pawlenty is an evangelical. Indeed, during the VP speculation in 2008, the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody argued, "Pawlenty may be the one guy to help McCain with working class moderates AND socially conservative Evangelicals." So he can genuinely compete with Huckabee or someone similar to his right.

Ramesh notes that Romney ran as the candidate of the conservative movement (and I would point out that Fred Thompson's candidacy was about the fundamental mismatch of Romney the man and Romney the candidate of the movement):

All these advisers may, however, be looking at Romney’s options too narrowly. Romney’s strategy in the last campaign was not to run as the social conservatives’ candidate. It was to run as the movement-conservative candidate. Throughout the primary he claimed that he best represented what he called “the three legs of the stool” holding up conservatism, with the legs representing conservative positions on social issues, economics, and foreign policy. The attempt to rally his party’s right made a certain strategic sense. Giuliani and John McCain started the primary season with higher profiles than Romney and, in different ways, represented the party’s left wing. Running to the right thus presented Romney with an opportunity.

Romney, in not playing in NY-23 has, in some important sense, laid the groundwork for a(nother) criticism of him as the candidate of the conservative movement. How can he be the candidate of the movement but duck out on the first major fight of the movement. (2nd, if you count healthcare, which doesn't cut nicely for Mitt...) Can he really run from the same location that he had earlier? No. This suggests that he is taking the route that Ramesh almost recommends by moving to the left end of the party and/or the establishment. (I distinguish between these)

This time Romney could follow a different path. There are no prospective McCains or Giulianis, no heavyweights from the left or even the center of the party. Instead of running as the movement conservative in the race, Romney could run as a party-establishment candidate who is acceptable to the Right. That strategy wouldn’t require him to move left on the issues. But it would entail, among other things, taking fewer jabs at the other candidates for not being conservative enough (jabbing them for having bad ideas would still be in season). It would entail advertising Romney’s conservatism less. The policies could still be conservative — but he would promote them as good ideas more than as conservative ones. 

 I don't know how this plays out. Romney running from establishment/left of the party, and Pawlenty running to the right? Perhaps. There's another angle that Ramesh notes:

To be a strong candidate, finally, Romney has to address one weakness that has not gotten much attention: his lack of appeal to middle-income and low-income voters. The exit polls from the primaries tell a consistent story. In Iowa and Florida, he won pluralities only among those voters who made more than $100,000 a year. In New Hampshire, voters had to make more than $150,000 before they started favoring him. Michigan, where Romney’s father was governor, was the great exception: Romney won among every income group above $30,000 a year. If Romney can’t find an economic message and a way of making it that appeals to middle-class voters, he may as well save his money and not bother running.

Again, we have Pawlenty's strong suit: reaching out to the middle class and working class.

The field is set. A working-to-middle class Midwestern candidate with strong evangelical roots running against a white-shoe Northeast wealthy candidate with strong western roots. This will be an interesting battle.

                                           It is quite difficult to say who is or isn’t running for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2010. I suspect that Mitt Romney is. By all historic measures he is next in line and current levels of activity make it likely that he is running.  I also suspect that Mississippi’s Governor, Haley Barbour is seriously looking at the nomination. John Ensign of Nevada was running. That is until an extramarital affair of his could no longer be hidden and the secret attempts by his mommy and daddy to pay off his mistress all came to light and put an end to that ridiculous notion. 

Some sectors were already campaigning for South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford. With “Draft Sanford” web site’s and rampant prognostications, Sanford was riding a wave of public enthusiasm for a run at the Republican nomination. Then he disappeared from sight for more than 5 days, leaving everyone to wonder what happened to Governor Sanford and where in the world is Mark? The answer to that quickly brought down those “Draft Sanford for President” sites. He was in Argentina with his “soul mate”, a pretty young thing he met some years ago and fell  more in love with her than he was with his wife.

But still riding high as potential candidates in 2010 are Mitt Romney, who trailed McCain in the delegate count in 2008, and Sarah Palin, who McCain chose for Vice President.

Such speculation about Romney can be made out of the level and type of activity that he is wading into.

With his political action committee, Free and Strong America PAC, he is actively involved in critical races throughout the nation, including this years gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and gaining the favor of future elected officials who will be crucial supporters in the future.

He has also become a part of the National Council for a New America, a group of leaders that include Republicans such as former Florida Governor Jeb, Bush, Congressman Eric Cantor and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. This group intends to have a serious national discussion about the challenges facing America, small businesses and working families and they are taking the discussion on the road all across the nation.

Additionally, Romney is bringing in the mother’s milk of political campaigning…….money. His fundraising is constant, consistent and high.

So all are indications that in 2012, Romney will be running for the nomination that he was denied by the Republican establishment in 2008.

As for Sarah Palin, she confused pundits with her surprise resignation as Governor of Alaska and confounded the status quo. Opponents of Palin do not take the reasons she gave for resigning at face value. Instead they claim she is a quitter or that she can’t take the heat. What they neglect to realize is that Sarah Palin is not your average politician. They can’t seem to comprehend that Sarah Palin is genuine. She is a real person with personal beliefs and convictions that are not affected by political ambition, opinion polls or inside the beltway political games. They also fail to realize that Sarah Palin does not live for politics or allow  politics to change her life or principles. To the contrary she stands for her life changing politics.

As such, Sarah Palin made it clear that as a national target of liberal antics geared at attacking her, her agenda for Alaska was being hampered by frivolous legal challenges against every breathe she took, word she muttered and garment she wore. Therefore Sarah Palin decided to circumvent these tactics. Confident that her Lieutenant Governor was dedicated to the agenda that she has taken to this point, she took away the target that hampered its further expeditious advancement . Herself.

Now, no longer an available official government target for the hate-based liberal establishment, Sarah Palin is free and what the left does not realize is that freedom is much more powerful than any government office or liberal government program. With the power of freedom now in her hands, Sarah Palin just might be more of a threat to the left than she ever was and as she uses that freedom, she just might take them on by starting a run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Former Vice Presidents and Vice Presidential nominees don’t always have the best shot at being elected President or at getting their parties presidential nomination.

Al Gore got the nomination in 2000 but lost the election. Lieberman was his VP nominee but failed to get the presidential nomination in 2004.

John Edwards got the VP slot in 2004 but failed to get his parties presidential nomination in ’08.

Before them George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon before him, where the only contemporary Vice President’s to eventually move on and win their parties nomination for President, in their own right, and then the presidency itself.

In 1984 Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale won the Democrat’s nomination in ‘84 but lost and Bush 41’s vice president, Dan Quayle, fell off the radar before the Iowa Caucuses took place during his brief attempt to win the Republican nomination in 2000.

So vice presidents and vice presidential nominees don’t necessarily have the inside track to their party’s nomination for President and as we look toward 2012, Sarah Palin will not be on the fast track for it either. If she seeks the nomination, she will still be the target of liberal hypocrisy and their fear driven propaganda and attacks and she will have to fight hard and truly earn the nomination amidst a field that will have a number of formidable choices. Only now the left will not be able to bog her down with frivolous and unwarranted government ethics charges and lawsuits.

Now that Palin has just officially resigned as Governor, she could easily enjoin that race and begin to lace up her running shoes for a long marathon to the White House.

It is hard to tell though.

Sarah could be so pissed at those who have tried to destroy her and her family and who have tried to impede progress in Alaska, that she is either fed up and leaving politics for a more civil path for the promotion of her beliefs or she may simply be reloading her ideological guns as she prepares to take aim at the liberal philosophy and its purveyors who have run amuck and now control government.

So far, there are no concrete indications that make it clear either way. At least there are no indications of the likes that we see with Mitt Romney.

But there is one little clue that could be telling.

The domain names sarahpalinforpresident.com and sarahpalin2012 have recently been claimed and registered.

Normally that could simply be the doing of some dreamy eyed, entrepreneurial, get rich quick minded person who figures on selling those domains to Sarah Palin for big bucks if she does make it official.

However a closer look reveals that these two domain names were registered by Jay Griffin of Anchorage Alaska. Where he is from is not half as important as the fact that he is a close confidant of Sarah Palin and that, along with Palin, he is a member of the Alaska Republican Party Central Committee.

Could Griffin be hoping to make some money off of his friend Sarah Palin if she does run for President? Or, is he and his new domain names just the start of a long campaign to evict Barack Obama from the White House and to take back America from the Pelosi/Reid liberal mentality that is currently infecting our government in flu-like fashion?

Odds are that an exploratory committee for that possibility are in the works.

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In his FNS interview today, Mitt Romney mentioned his NYT Op-ed from late last year:

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

While it never should have come to this, it's refreshing to hear Republicans talking about letting losers fail.  Between Romney and Dick Cheney, it's almost looking like we can get the GOP away from Bailouts.  To Paraphrase Rick Santelli, Governor Palin are you listening?!?

Chris Cillizza has argued that the Iowa Supreme Court decision that established gay marriage might disadvantage moderate candidates in the 2012 GOP primary. Cillizza notes that Heartland Iowa, a lefty Iowa blog, lays out a timeframe that would include a November 2011 ballot initiative that Nate Silver seems to think would be close, but the pro-traditional-marriage forces would prevail. (I have to say, I wonder what the presence of married gay couples does to his model)

UPDATE: This even happening would require getting it on the ballot, which would require the cooperation of the Democratic legislature. I kinda doubt that'll happen, don't you?

Anyways, back to Cillizza:

Assuming that time line is right, the fight over the constitutionality of banning same sex marriages would fall right in the heart of the run-up to the 2012 presidential caucus.

And, with the Republican caucus typically dominated by social conservatives, you can imagine the long-term impact today's ruling could have on the presidential jockeying.

At first glance, the decision should help candidates -- like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who are closely aligned with the social conservative wing of the Republican party.

He then argues that this could really hurt Jon Huntsman:

One person who could potentially be hurt by today's ruling is Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) who has staked out a moderate position on the issue -- expressing his support for civil unions earlier this year despite the fact that large numbers of Utah voters oppose the idea. "I'm a firm believer in the traditional construct of marriage, a man and a woman," the governor told the Deseret News. "But I also think that we can go a greater distance in enhancing equal rights for others in nontraditional relationships."

Let me offer another thought. This could lead to a further minimization of the Iowa Caucus. My understanding is that Mitt Romney, who must be considered the front-runner, is already trying to figure out how to avoid Iowa or somehow reshuffle the deck. A number of candidates could reasonably try to skip it.

Iowa Republican Party politics will be very, very interesting over the next couple of years. I expect this to be ask much solved by the rules guys and party officials as by actual voters. But that's really the point of caucuses, isn't it?

Many know that I was never a big fan of Mitt Romney. After running for years as a liberal Republican in Massachusetts, with private assurances well beyond his public statement.

That said, I have long thought that he was poorly served by advisors that recommended he run to the right as a candidate of the conservative movement rather than as a pragmatist. He didn't have to call himself a 10 out of 10 like Reagan.

Anyways, Mitt is tacking back to the center on a number of issues in an interview with The Hill's Reid Wilson. On regulation, the stimulus, TARP, and immigration, he says things that I mostly agree with but are out of touch with the "conservative base".

It would not surprise me to see more of this, with both Romney and other candidates. If Romney runs to the center in some form, while trying to keep his connection with the conservative movement represented by CPAC and other groups (although the reach of their power is unclear). Furthermore Mike Huckabee is another kind of tack to the center. And John Huntsman has another.

Anyways, after the jump, some of the things he says.

Regulation:

In an interview with The Hill, Romney said, “We as Republicans misspeak when we say we don’t like regulation. We like modern, up-to-date dynamic regulation that is regularly reviewed, streamlined, modernized and effective.”

Mitt is right. But the voicing of this is ... odd. Similarly on stimulus:

Similarly, Romney is among the many Republicans who support a stimulus plan, but not in the form Congress passed in February.

“The best stimulus with the highest multiplier effect is one which gives money back to people rather than having government spend more, and so I think they got it wrong. It’s too much weighted toward spending, too little weighted toward tax reductions,” Romney said.

And immigration:

Romney believes that one way to attract more minorities to the GOP is to pass immigration reform before the next election, saying the issue becomes demagogued by both parties on the campaign trail.

“We have a natural affinity with Hispanic-American voters, Asian-American voters,” he said.

Speaking in his Ritz-Carlton room with a pair of blue jeans on the dresser, Romney declined to criticize immigration hard-liners like former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who backed Romney after he dropped his own presidential bid. Romney argued that all 2008 GOP candidates — including Tancredo — strongly favor legal immigration.

This is the one that blows my mind. Jeb Bush, who seemed to support Romney, accused him of "pounding his chest" on the issue. And one has to ask how the GOP would get any credit for immigration reform now.

Mitt Romney weighs in on the AIG bonus scandal and reminds us what a tragedy it is that he's not the President.

The news that employees at AIG are on the verge of being rewarded $165 million in bonuses at a time when the insurance giant is on the verge of collapse is rightly shocking to taxpayers who have pumped billions into the company to keep it afloat. Of course, the Obama administration was wrong to initially defend the bonuses as contractually obligated. In 1990, I was asked to assume the CEO position at the management consulting firm Bain & Co., then in acute financial distress. The need to restructure was paramount or else the company would fail, leaving 1,000 employees without a job. We renegotiated debt with bankers. We rewrote leases with landlords. We designed a whole new governing system. We also had to convince the founding partners to turn back profits they had already taken out of the company. Of course, we had no legal basis for making such a request, but without a shared sacrifice we couldn’t keep the company alive. Generously, the founders returned the money, putting us on a path to stabilizing the firm and turning it over to new leadership. It’s difficult to understand why the same lesson about shared sacrifice is lost on AIG’s executive team and their government overseers.

The odd thing is that Mitt Romney has proved conclusively that rescuing things is good politics. While the resurrection of Bain & Co. made Romney a rich man, the Lazarus routine on the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics made him governor of Massachusetts. Its hard to image Obama etal wanting to fail, but as even Obama supporters are discovering, hope, finally, isn't a strategy.

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?"

The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Yes, it's early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It's a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House.

The worries have turned into polite pleas and gentle criticism from such Obama supporters as Ignatius and Broder of the Washington Post.

Everyone is dancing around the real cause of public disgust here--the AIG folks are doing nothing that Congress hasn't been doing for two months now--raiding the hen house.

Wallstreet attracts greedy bastards the way dumps attract seagulls, but they are pikers compared to Congress. The collusion of the Obama White House with Nancy Pelosi's mafia in the House resulted in a stimulus bill that delivered a mere 7% of its near trillion dollar price tag for actual economic stimulus this year. Even Bernie Madoff didn't have the balls for a rip-off on that scale.

This isn't lost on Americans, 82% of which regard the recent antics of Congress as deeply worrisome. Like Broder and Ignatius, they are holding on to vain hope that Obama actually does have a plan. He doesn't.

Who is more stupid, the King of fools, or the fools that made him King?

Evdently everyone has agreed to a "Car Czar" to dole out the $15 billion Big Three Bailout 

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081209/congress_autos.html

Well, one man is going to play a huge role on whether America has an effective manufacturing economy in 10-15 years time.

I do not think someone who ran the labor union that contributed to the mess  , or the lawyer who doled out checks to 9/11 widows is the optimal choice here.

We need someone with a proven record of rescuing (albeit painfully) troubled businesseshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Business_career .and who has the political chops to maneuver through the minefield out there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Turning_around_the_2002_Winter_Olympics.

Being able to deal with lots of Democrats is a plus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney particularly on thorny health care issues. and this man should be deeply tied to the sucess of the state of Michigan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Early_life_and_education

Mitt Romney should be the Car Czar

Far fetched for Team Obama to accept this--any more than having Hillary as Secretary of State?

Chapter 8 of “Do the Right Thing” actually comes from a line Huckabee wishes he’d shouted out in a debate in response to Mitt Romney’s suggestion that buying High Yield stocks was an economic solution.

Huckabee argues that Republicans have become economically out of touch. “We had people leading us who knew the country club, but not Sam’s Club.”

Of charges of populism, Huckabee writes, “What I was actually doing was pretty simple: acknowledging there would be a war if people continued to work their rears off for a declining standard of living. I’d rather be a populist than a pompous patrician who had no idea how hard the struggle was for many Americans and how much fear lived in the hearts of folks who wondered if Friday would be the day the boss got a multimillion-dollar buyout and they got the pink slips and they lost their payouts and pensions. These weren’t phony fears and I was shocked that a stage full of people wanting to be president seemed generally clueless about them.”

Huckabee repeats his “Club for Growth=Club for Greed” message. Huckabee explains this came because of The Club’s “willingness to take money from donors and then target candidates’ political agenda, not necessarily letting an honest assessment of the candidate’s record get in their way.” Of course, Huckabee never explains what he means by this, but the blogger Nuke Gingrich did some thorough research tying the CFG attacks to Steve Stephens, an ultra-rich Arkansas businessman who crossed swords with Huckabee. It’d be nice if Huckabee had tried to explain this, but I don’t think he wanted to spend two pages connecting CFG and Steve Stephens and explaining the whole rivalry.

On CEO pay, Huckabee is clear (I believe he makes the statement about three times)  that he doesn’t want the government to control CEO Salaries, but that he wants to see leadership from within the corporate boardroom. One egregious practice Huckabee criticizes is the lack of independence in compensation decisions. He points to a $400 million retirement package received by the Chairman of Exxon Mobile. Huckabee writes, “In ExxonMobil case, the Chairman and CEO served on Chase Manhattan’s board of directors when it awarded Chase’s CEO a generous retirement package. In an enormous conflict of interest, Chase’s CEO was on ExxonMobil’s board and returned the favor when the $400 million package was awarded. We must have truly independent compensation systems to protect shareholders and the general public, who ultimately pay for these exorbitant packages in the form of higher prices.”

Huckabee also calls for pension reform beginning with “reversing legislation that has allowed companies to move assets out of their pension plans to artificially inflate both the company’s perceived performance and its stock price.”

On trade, Huckabee acknowledges that Protectionism is not the answer and that globalization has generally been a blessing for Americans. He argues for some basic actions to help those Americans hurt by the process by a list of solutions that “could be loved only by a real government wonk.” They are: “unifying the Unemployment Insurance Program and the Trade Adjustment Assistance to better aid with wage insurance, retraining, portable health insurance, and relocation assistance; providing block grants to the states to come up with their own flexible and creative programs, since they know best the challenges faced by their workers, businesses, and communities; expanding the current limited deductibility of education and training expenses; providing business tax credits for the increase of costs when they expand their education and training facilities beyond their own workers, such as to high school students fulfilling their personalized learning plans or those in community colleges; expanding efforts to help our businesses under international standards, including lean management and quality assurance techniques; re-establishing a workable Safeguard Mechanism within the World Trade Organization.”

He also says that it’s time for America to take actions against Chinese violations of trade rules. China engages in currency manipulation so that its goods are less expensive. Huckabee calls for using countervailing duties to offset China’s actions and against all other nations that break trade rules that the U.S. follows.

Some people may opt to call Huckabee’s proposal socialism or economic liberalism, but with most Americans, it will sound like common sense to not let companies raid pension funds, or to refuse to let countries get away with unfair trade practices that hurt American companies.

If there’s one criticism of this chapter I’d offer (other than that massive sentence I quoted earlier should have been broken up), it is that Huckabee’s writing about education policy was sparse. Huckabee spent a whole two paragraphs discussing the issue. He laid out a very innovative idea of individualized education programs, but did not explain how he would bring this about, particularly given his explanation in a previous chapter, that the President is not in charge of setting eighth grade curriculum.  I’d like much more information than was laid out in this book.

This gem of idiocy was burried over the holidays what with terrorism and turkey on the menu, but it really is worth addressing.

One Curly Haugland, GOP chair of North Dakota is throwing his hat in the ring for RNC chair and fired a warning shot across the bow at other non RNC challengers and at Michael Steele in particular.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/27/steele-meeting-resistance-in-bid-for-rnc-post/

The above article in the Times includes such quackery as:

"In my estimation, 168 committed members of the Republican National Committee are a powerful army of qualified advocates for Republican principles; certainly much more threatening to the Democrats than one celebrity spokesman," Mr. Haugland said.
 

And:

"Your chosen path to leadership of the Republican National Committee exemplifies the problem we should immediately seek to resolve, that being the practice of allowing nonmembers to exert undue influence in the process of selecting our leaders" Mr. Haugland wrote Mr. Steele. "Getting the Republican Party back on the right 'track' is a job rightfully left to the Republicans who have been elected to run this railroad."
 

I found it very intersting to note that Curly's objections extend to others who HAVE been part of the RNC though not currently holding office.

Mr. Haugland said his objection to nonmembers seeking the RNC chairmanship applied also to Chip Saltsman, former Tennessee Republican Party chairman and campaign manager for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's presidential bid.

Meanwhile South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson (who also worked closely with Mike Huckabee on the election campaign of Glen McColl and on the front lines for SC's first black state legislator Tim Scott ) is under fire for of all things being a 'closet racist' in his country club membership???

Now call me stupid.. but I'm figuring that anybody with a brain in their head knows that dogging Steele in public right now, is about as benificial to your carreer in conservative politics, as dogging Palin during and after the election.

Curly has NO base in that RNC group, or support from influential voices in the movement outside it. He has no chance of winning that chairmanship. Which to me, begs the question, who stands to benfit the most from this 'insiders only' policy?

And wouldn't you know.. If Newt, Steele and Saltsman were out of the way.. one Saul Anuzis, GOP Chair for Michigan, (and a supporter and surrogate for Mitt Romney during the primaries) moves straight to the front of the line, becomming an almost shoe in for the spot.

He's been making the rounds gladhanding all the good ole boys, and has used his hard earned money to roll out with a splashy almost presidential campaign style website for his candidacy.

Now I won't go so far as to say that this is a Machievellian move by Mitt's surrogates to get his guy into the top spot, (Any more than I would say Huckabee is pulling the strings on Saltsman's candidacy, or that Newt may play kingmaker for Steele in exchange for his support in the future) These guys all have legitimate experience and resumes to challenge for the spot..but only the politically naieve don't see that every move fits into a bigger puzzle.

This IS politics people... and Curly is falling on his sword for somebody.. Because NOBODY is going to back him up on this ridiculous suggestion that 'more of the same' is going to lead the GOP out of the wilderness. He's officially dead to most conservatives. Which means somebody pretty important to someone must stand to reap the benifits of his political death.

Or he could just really be that dumb.

It will be very interesting to see how this power struggle plays out.

My money's still on Newt/Steele although my heart is definately with Huck/Saltsman

                                                                       POLITICS 24/7

As the GOP recovers from a drubbing at that ballot box that served them with an eviction notice at the White House and a foreclosure on many seats in the house and senate, a reorganization is in order.

Crucial to a successful reorganization is the selection of it’s next national chairman.

Florida Senator Mel Martinez

After the losses which cost them their majorities in the house and senate during the 2006 midterm elections, the powers that be, hastily installed Florida Senator Mel Martinez as the new chairman. At the same time they also elected Mike Duncan, a veteran political strategist and former Treasurer General Counselor to the RNC, to run the “day to day operations” of the national committee. In other words Duncan was actually the Chairman and Senator Martinez was to be the face of the party.

It was an arrangement that did not last long.

A few months into this arrangement, Senator Martinez stepped down and Mr. Duncan had the title all to himself. Not that it mattered. Whether it was his fault or not Republicans were outspent, out argued , outmaneuvered and voted out.

Outgoing RNC Chairman Mike Duncan

I will not blame Mike Duncan for the hemorrhaging of Republicans in this election cycle. That began before he took office, less than a year ago, and it simply continued for the time period that he was in office as chairman. It is more than likely that no individual chairman of the RNC could have prevented the losses Republicans suffered but we do know that the chairman did not help prevent them from happening.

So I do not blame Mike Duncan but I do harbor ill will to the party officials who gave up after 2006 and installed quick replacements to head up the Republican party. It was quite apparent that the party was simply trying to just get through the last two years of President Bush’s term in office. The RNC leadership were more like caretakers than leaders. They did not seek to adopt a leadership that was cutting edge and enthusiastic about revolutionizing the capabilities of the party organization and preparing us for the mother of all elections, the presidency.

It is the same complacency that helped cost Republicans their majorities in congress. Elected officials lost the anti establishment thinking that won them favor back in 1994. After becoming “the establishment” they slowly began to forget that government was there to work for the people not for the people running government.

So here we are saluting a new President-Elect, a new Democrat President-Elect. One who will be partnering with a majority of legislators who are also Democrats.

It might sound depressing to fellow Republicans but the truth is it is that for a number of reasons it is not depressing:

• Can’t Get Much Worse -We have just about bottomed out. It truly can’t get much worse so the prospects for improving our numbers in the next election are good.

 

• Liberals Gone Wild -With Democrats in total control of government, there is little to hold them back and prevent them from showing their true colors. When those true colors come out, Americans will realize that the direction they offer is too sharp a turn to the left for their tastes. The last time they had total control was in 1993 when Bill Clinton was President. After two years of liberals gone wild, Americans gave control, of both the house and senate, to Republicans for the first time in forty years. It was something that Republicans could not achieve on their own. It took the combined left leaning radicalization of today’s Democrat party to bring that about and it is about to happen again. In fact the greatest challenge that the new President will face comes from his own party. He will be struggling against them and fighting them in an effort to lead from the center rather than the left.

 

• The War - Although the economy helped push the war off the front burner, the changing tide of the surge in Iraq also made the war less of an issue because violence and combat was down and it was being won. The war in Iraq did not help Republicans in this election cycle but not because it was unnecessary, as democrats claim,  but, as I explain in the link referenced here*, Americans became weary and leery of the war. While the surge was delayed and the administration wavered, violence spiked as a result of a resurgence of radical Islamic terrorists in Iraq. That is when Democrats successfully exploited a declining resolve to continue an effort that people were beginning to think was becoming a quagmire. Since the increased deployment of troops into Iraq, the situation improved and there is light at the end of the tunnel. As a result, despite the cries of candidate Obama to end the war, President Obama will not be withdrawing all of our forces from Iraq anytime soon.  Now that he has seen the national security data that demonstrates the dangers of his misguided promises as a candidate, as a President he will not be so quick to screw things up. Ultimately Republicans will be proven right on the issue.

 

• The Economy - Typically our economy goes through cycles of growth and contraction every ten to fifteen years. More accurately, just about every 11 years, we encounter economic turmoil brought on by the cumulative effects of industrial shifts, world events and other related circumstances. That being said, it is how we maneuver through these cycles that determines their severity and the length of time that we endure them. The liberal propensity to raise taxes and redistribute wealth during these times does not help. Those policies simply deepen the crisis and draw out the cycle. If the knee jerk, liberal tendency towards more taxes and an expansion of government does occur, Republicans will be able to stem their losses and start increasing their numbers. The current crisis that we are experiencing is not a result of Republican economic policy. It is a result of their complacency and unwillingness to differentiate themselves from liberals when it came to spending. Our own President had no problem with cutting taxes, a good thing, but he also never cut spending and neither did fellow Republicans in congress.

All of this allows for those Republicans, who are in office, to offer alternatives to the counterproductive liberal agenda that will undoubtedly dominate national policy. To effectively achieve that, Republican members of congress need to reestablish their fiscally conservative roots and inherent sense of an offensive strategy when it comes to national security. The fact that, as Republicans, we choose to eliminate threats rather than tolerate them will be made much clearer with liberals in control and it must not be ignored.

Now that Republicans are not in control we now have the luxury that Democrats had. The luxury of not having to defend our leadership. Democrats will now have the chance to be held accountable for everything that happens. They will have to take blame for the results of increasing taxes, increasing unnecessary regulations and increasing the size and cost of government. With their leadership comes responsibility. With responsibility comes credit as well as blame. After eight years of taking blame for all that is not liked, Republicans can now luxuriate in being able to place blame on Democrats as they have done to Republicans.

But while those Republicans elected to congress do their job by providing alternatives to liberal policies and maintaining their role as the loyal opposition, our political leaders must hit the ground running.

The question now is, who is best suited to reorganize and reinvigorate Republicans? The person needed to rally Republicans must be articulate. But a good speaker is not all that we need. The person who is made the new chairman of the party must have a passionate desire to advance the cause, incredible organizational skills, the ability to delegate responsibilities to the right and most qualified people, endless energy and stamina as well as creativity and resourcefulness and a proven record of success.

The new chairman needs the same type of vision and commitment to conservative principles that the freshmen members of congress who were elected in the 1994 Republican revolution had. The new chairman must have a vision which understands that the best government is the government that gets out of the way and allows freedom to flourish by defending it at home and abroad and by insuring that opportunity is available to all.

Currently, there are seven frontrunners. They include:

 

Mike Steele

Michael Steele - GOPAC , former Lt. Governor of Maryland and unsuccessful candidate for US Senate in 2006.

Chuck Yob

Chuck Yob - Successful Michigan businessman, GOP fundraiser and Michigan National Committeeman

Saul Anuzis

Saul Anuzis - Chairmanof the Michigan Republican State Committee

Alec Pointevint

Alec Poitevint - Georgia’s Republican National Committeeman

Katon Dawson

Katon Dawson - Republican Party Chairman of South Carolina , the state that had the best performance for Republicans during this election cycle.

Jim Greer

Jim Greer - Florida’s Republican party Chairman

Chip Saltsman

Chip Saltsman - A former Chair of Tennessee’s GOP and the former campaign manager of Mike Huckabee’s failed candidacy for the republican presidential nomination.

Mike Huckabee

Speculation has not only Huckabee’s former campaign guru on the list, Mike Huckabee himself is rumored to be a potential contender. So is one of Huckabee’s former opponents for the GOP presidential nod, Mitt Romney.

 

Of all these names the one person who I believe could do the most for the Republican National Committee is Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney

Romney has been successful at every job that he has undertaken. He is passionate. He is articulate, savvy and has an eye for recruiting those who are the best at their jobs. Mitt Romney could do wonders for the party. He would be able to provide the GOP’s, get out the vote, 72 hour program with great improvements and he would create a top notch center for Republican organization, communications, fundraising and creative strategy.

Problem is that I want Mitt Romney to be able to run for President. I am looking forward to either him or Sarah Palin being our 2012 nominee. Becoming the political leader of the party does not help him establish the bipartisan image that a Presidential nominee needs. If he did as a good a job for the party as I think he would, having been the chairman of the party he rebuilds, could help him get the party’s nomination though.

However, I feel that a truly smart RNCchairman would involve Mitt Romney and utilize his expertise. Doing so would keep Romney free to expand his nonpolitical credentials while still allowing for his Midas touch to assist behinf the scenes.

As for the other names mentioned, Mike Steele, Katon Dawson and Jim Greer are the only names that really interest me. Each of them have demonstrated ideological superiority to one extent or the other and have achieved outstanding results for Republicans.

Former Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich

One name not mentioned but is at the top of my list, is former Maryland Governor Robert Erhlich. After losing reelection in the 2006 GOP sea of change, Bob Ehrlich has not been discussed much. That is a shame because he happens to be one of the best in the newer generation of conservative politics. He was the first Republican to be elected governor of Maryland in almost 60 years. Through it all Ehrlich maintained his principles and conservative ideology. Not once did he try to win favor by acting like a democrat. Instead, he successfully implemented conservative ideology into government application. He also happens to be articulate and effective in his ability to explain and deliver the conservative message.

 

Sometimes referred to as a Kempite Republican, Bob Erhlich could be just what we need to rekindle our spirit and rally the cause.

Whoever the grand poobahs of the GOP hierarchy install as chairman, it is my greatest hope that they recruit the right people to carry out the mission that is ahead.

Patrick Ruffini

People like political Internet champion Patrick Ruffini who could incorporate the most cyber savvy organization politics has ever seen and Ralph Reed who is a master at reaching out and organizing the grassroots.

Ralph Reed

Being the minority party is not a problem to be feared. Becoming the minority is what we needed to fear and now, we are there.  So the worst is over. Now we have the chance to take advantage of what Democrats took advantage of for a long time, minority status and the ability to place blame on the powers that be that comes with it.

From here we can only come back, and if we take the right steps, we can come back quickly. To do so will require that our first steps be the right steps . In this case that would be done by picking the right person to map out our future and recruit the brightest lights to help illuminate the fast track to the reinvigoration that the party is capable of.

 

 

Q: What’s the problem with Barack Obama jokes?

A: His followers don’t think they’re funny and other people don’t think they’re jokes.